Garth Brooks Is Embarking On A Worldwide ‘Friend$ In Low Place$’ Tour

Since 1991, when SoundScan began tracking how many copies of Blood Sugar Sex Magik you’ve bought, Garth Brooks is the top selling artist in the United States. He’s sold over 69 million albums, or four million more than the Beatles, despite not having put out anything since 2001’s Scarecrow. But because it’s been too long since ChrisGainesville, Florida, has heard “American Honky-Tonk Bar Association” live, Brooks will soon go on a worldwide tour, though not before playing Vegas twice.

“You know what, since it’s you and since we’ve had a history forever, let’s announce it. We’re going on a world tour in 2014,” Brooks told [Robin] Roberts today on GMA. “I can’t believe I just did that but you are a doll.”

“It sure feels good to get to throw your hat back in the ring,” Brooks said. “All my babies are fine with it. Ms. Yearwood is fine with it. So now I get to do what I love to do, which is play music. I get to be with the person I want to be with, which is Ms. Yearwood.” (Via)

To fund the tour, Brooks briefly considered making a deal with the Devil…

I’d see this for $40 or less. I moved to a new town at the age when I started getting into music, and this town pretty much only had country and rap. Of course the 9 year old skinny white boy picked country. That was Garth Brooks “golden era” or whatever, and I loved him. I’d see him for nostalgia sakes.

Here’s how he sold 69 million albums, from someone who worked in the industry at that time:

Garth was/is obsessive about Soundscan charts and he was aware of all of the counting loopholes. So he began a crusade against fans buying his CDs used (used sales don’t get reported to Soundscan). He even went so far as to post requests not to buy used CDs on the back covers of his albums (go look!).

The next thing he did was to begin repackaging his catalogue with bonus tracks and special covers. It was fairly cheap and easy to manufacture these “new” editions, and EMI put a ton of pressure on all of its regional reps to promote the shit out of it. The larger music chains were forced to put up huge displays and order loads of non-returnable stock. Every unit shipped to stores is a unit sold.

And then he makes a double-live CD with multiple covers and encourages fans to buy multiple copies. Every sale counts as 2 discs sold.

Then he released a budget-priced box set of his studio albums, which was basically the existing CDs in a box with a small booklet. Every low-cost set sold counts as 5 units.

Add in a bunch of compilations and another low-cost 6-disc set, and there you have it.

You have to take his numbers with a huge grain of salt as well because Soundscan didn’t start recording sales data until 1991.

Before that, sales were recorded quite literally by the label calling the record stores and asking how many got sold every week. The labels knew what got *shipped* but not what actually sold. A huge chunk of unsold records were always getting sent back every few months.

It was common for stores to fluff their numbers because they wanted to seem like a busier store (and then the labels would get them more promo items) or they just liked the label rep and wanted to give them some good news.

Remember, a band like the Beatles sold millions of albums throughout America almost 2 full generations before the first Soundscan unit was recorded. And nobody has accurate numbers recorded anywhere.

Pretty much the truth right there. I worked in the industry back then as well, supplying cds, dvds, and video games wholesale to retailers. The amount of influence record labels had was staggering. Look no further than a new cd costing $18.98. Unreal.

On the flip side of this, I personally witnessed about a dozen indie retailers revolt against Garth and his crusade against used cds. They flat out refused to buy new copies of anything in his discography. A dozen indies isn’t a lot, but I was just one sales rep, working at one “one-stop”. Hopefuly there were more, because fuck Garth.

In the 90s, a bunch of bands and artists released multiple covers and whatnot to try to pick up extra sales. Most of them made little impact on their numbers.

During the mid-90s, Garth Brooks had an inordinate amount of power in the music industry, and he was the undisputed face of New Country. Reiussues and new covers cost money, and no other band or artist had the sway or the business savvy to encourage the labels to do it.

Garth was the only one with the goal, the drive and the resources.

RCA (now BMG) has played this game with Elvis albums for years to the point that his catalogue is so overstuffed with hits collections that his actual recorded albums have been deemed meaningless.